Coal-loading bucket



Sept. 15, 1925. 1,554,164

. N. H. McCLEVEY COAL LOADING BUCKET Filed July 14, 1924 2 Shins-Sheet. ,l

sept. 15. '1925. 1,554,164

N. H. MQCLEVEY COAL LOADING BUCKET Filed Jul'y 14. 1924 E Shootl-Shnt 2 0,30 o'o o oo nlfwuf @n i UNTED STATES PATENT OFFICE. Y

NUBMAN I-I. MCCLEVEY, OF PETERSBURG, INDIANA.

GOAL-LUADING BUCKET.

appneauon area Jury 14, 1924. serial NQ. 725,852.

To aZZ 'whom t may concern:

p Be it known that I, NORMAN H. Mo- CLEVEY, a citizen of the United States, residing at Petersburg,V in the county of Pike and the State of Indiana, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Coal- Loading Buckets, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to buckets for gathering coal in a mine where the coal has been loosened from the original vein by the miner7 and for transpolting and dumping the coalrinto cars for conveyance to the pit for removal in the usual manner.

My improved bucket is particularly applicable to a mining system wherein the ody ofcoal to be removed is deiined by parallel end galleries in one of which is a hoisting machine or winch and a track with cars passing under an incline, and in the parallel gallery is a pulley and block-the parallel galleries being connected by a cross gallery at right angles thereto in which my improved bucket is given a reciprocating travel by a cable which passes around the pulley and has yits ends attached to a pair of rotating drums of the hoisting machine. The coal is loosened by miners on one side of and for thc entire lengthA ofthe cross gallery progressively in suitable nar ow widths to the limits of safety from roof caving, when a. new room is started. This, so far as I know, is a new method of coal mining and will be made the subject matter of a separate patent.

The object of the present invention is toprovide a bucket that, being drawn back and forth in the cross gallery by the cable and hoisting machine, will automatically load itself from the loosened coal without digging into the natural floor or bottom of thegallery while loading, yor while loaded, or while returning empty for a load. Y

Another object is to provide means for regulating the extent to which the bucket will dig into the loose coal at one side of its normal line or path of travel on its way toward the hoisting machine, and to provide means for causing the bucket to load gradually at regulated speeds or to load at once. A further object is to. provide a bucket that will ride over loose coal and not dig intol the coal or floor on its trip l away from the hoisting machine.

l accomplish the above, and other objects parts in the several rviews of the drawings.

ln Fig. 6, 7 and 8 are the parallel galleries in a coal mine and 9, a cross gallery where the mining work is in progress. Loose coal 10, is being loaded by the bucket 11 upon the cars 12. A vcable 13 is doubled around a pulley or tail-block 111 in gallery 7 and the ends of the cable are made fast to corresponding drums of a hoisting machine or winch 16 in the gallery 8. By properly operating the hoist drums the bucket 11 is made to travel toward and awayl from the hoisting machine, whereby loads of coal gathered and carried by the bucket are drawn up an incline 15 and` dumped in the cars 12.

bucket is openV on top and an essential feature of construction is that it is also open at the bottom to cause it to dump and also to assist it in loading. Its front is also open, but its two sides 17, 17, and its rear end 18 are closed and are of solid, strongly built metal, here shown. as two ply steel plates. These are reenforced at their upper and lower corners by angle bars 19 having one flange of each rivetedl to a respective one of the adjacent plates, and the other 'flange inturned opposite the adjacent edge` of its plate. The corners are strengthened by plates 20 that overlap the adjacent angle-bar flanges to which they are riveted.

Shoes comprising plates 21 with forwardly and upwardly sloping lower faces which act like sled runners to cause the bucket to ride over fixed lumps of coal and to prevent the front side-edges digging into the ioor, and which cause the bucket to dig into loose coal at the side, are riveted to eachV side 17 of the bucket, and thel sides are spaced and rigidly held apart as spaced by a top channel bar 22 extending transversely of the bucket and riveted to the corner anglefbars and to corner plates 20. The lower bottom edges of the sides 17 have anglabars riveted thereto and shoes riveted thereon to form the inturned runners 29 used to allow the bucket to glide or slide over the mine floor.

An angle bar 23 has a vertical flange riveted to the channel bar 22, and the horizontal flange which projects forwardly has a series of holes 24- in which the pin of a clevis (not shown) is selectively inserted for the attachment to the front endl of the bucket of the draft cable 13. To the outside'o't' the closed rear end of the bucket, the vertical' flanges 25 of a pair of angle bars are riveted with the horizontal flanges 26 of the bars in contact and preferably riveted together. The united flanges 26 have a longitudinal series of holes 27, Fig. 3, for the selective insertion of the pin of a clevis (not shown) by which the cable 13 is made fast to the rear end of the bucket. Y

Riveted to the bottom and rear of the bucket is a plate having an integral rearwardly projecting shoe 28, which reaches entirely across the bucket and is bent upwardly in the manner shown in Fig. 1,

r where an end view of the shoe 28 is presented, to cause the bucket to ride freely over loose coal in the travel of the empty bucket back to be filled.

In the operation of my invention, by connecting the cable clevises so the pull will be diagonally of the length of the bucket,

the latter will be made to dig into the loose coal at its side as the bucket is drawn to` ward the hoisting machine 16, and this r amount of digging into the coal can be regu lated by varying the diagonal position of the bucket relative to its line of travel. The shoe 28 will cause the bucket to ride over lumps or piles of coal, or other obstructions, in its travel away from the hoisting machine 16, and the open front end of the bucket will admit coal in the travel of the bucket toward the hoisting` machine. The coal is carried along by the three sided bucket over the mine floor and up the incline over the cars where sections of the incline are open to permit coal to fall from between the walls of the bucket through the open bottom of the bucket. The bucket so emptied is then ready to be pulled back to the opposite end of the i'oom to the gallery end 7 for the next load.

Having described my invention in the form now best known to me, what I claim as new and desire to secure by United States Letters Patent is:

1. For gathering coal in a mine, a bucket having an open bottom and front and a fixed rear end, in combination with a plate for each side rigidly attached thereto and terminating in advance of the bucket with ends thinned to dig into the loose coal and sufficiently elevated to prevent digging into the floor of the mine.

2. For gathering coal in a mine, a bucket having an open bottom and front, and a closed rear end, and plates narrower than the sides of the bucket attached to said ngrower than the sides of the bucket attached to said sides and extending in advance of the sides and having a thin outer end to dig into the loose coal the lower portions of said vplates being removed to prevent digging into the fioor of themine.

4. For gathering coal in a mine, a bucket having an open front end and a closed rear end, a draft line, and a tail line, means for attaching the draft line to the front of the bucket, means for attaching the tail line to the rear of the bucket, both of said means of attachment beingv adjustable in location transversely of the bucket, and each adjust? able independently of the other.

5. For gathering coal in a mine, a bucket having an open bottom and an open front and having an upwardly and rearwardly sloping shoe at its rear end said yshoe extending continuously from one side of the bucket to the other. i

6. For gathering coal in a mine, a bucket having an open bottom and an open front, upwardly inclined front runners, and anupwardly and rearwardly inclined rear shoe extending continuously from one side of the bucket to the other.

7.- For gathering coal in a mine, a bucket having an open bottom and an open front end, yand having means on the bucket whereby the bucket may be drawn in a diagonal position to its line of travel.4

8. F or gathering coal in a mine, a bucket having an vopen front end, means on the bucket whereby the bucket maybe drawn in a diagonal position to its line of travel and plates extending forwardly of the sides of the bucket to dig into the loose coal at the vsides of the bucket.

9. F or gathering coal in a miiie,a bucket having an open bottom and an yopen front end, and having a bar extending transversely across the bucket near its upper front end and having a second bar extending across transversely of the back side of the bucket, both of said bars having a longitudinal series of holes therein.

10. In a bucket for gathering and conveying coal in a mine, a left wall, a right Wall, a back wall rigidly secured to said left and right walls, inturned runners on the bottom edges of said walls, a top front llt) plate secured to the top forward edges of i cured to the lower edge of and projecting of holes therein and said bar being transbaclwardly from said back Wall, u front Versely secured t0 said back Wall above said drew bar having e longitudinal series of shoe and below the center of said back Wall. 10 holes therein, said front bar extending across Signed at Petersburg, in the county of 5 the bucket transversely and secured thereto Pike, and State o' lndizina, this 9th day of near the top edges of said side Walls, and a July, 1924. rear draw bar having a longitudinal series NRMAN H. MGCLEVEY. 

